Data visualization of environmental exposure as a form of involuntary augmentation.

Permeable Humans is an interactive data visualization that maps environmental and occupational health data onto the human body. It makes invisible health impacts visible to the general public. Drawing from datasets published by OSHA, WHO, and EPA, the project uses the concept of the homunculus to represent the frequency and severity of health impacts across different bodily systems. Each bodily region is deformed proportionally to reflect real-world data. This includes particulate matter accumulation (PM2.5 and PM10) in the brain and lungs, chemical ingestion in the abdomen, PFAS contamination in the vascular system, workplace overexertion injuries, and obesity rates across the U.S. population in 2018. By comparing U.S. data to other countries like India and measuring accumulations against EPA and WHO safety limits, the project reveals how environments augment bodies unequally. This educational tool transforms abstract statistics into embodied understanding. It demonstrates that human bodies are permeable systems continuously shaped by their environments and that the way we augment our surroundings is inevitably how we augment ourselves.